Press Release: Following success at the European Wind Europe event in Bilbao earlier this year, GEV and Clobotics are presenting their partnered turnkey blade maintenance solution to the US market at AWEA Wind Conference Houston, May 2019.

Combining Artificial Intelligence-based and autonomous inspections with a proven and experienced workforce, allows for fixed price long-term costings and will vastly improve clients’ predictability of operating costs as well as turbine productivity.

The next generation maintenance solution will be showcased by Clobotics and GEV Wind Power at the 2019 AWEA Wind Power Conference 20-23 May (Stand number 4031). The new global partnership between GEV Wind Power and Clobotics was announced in February this year and increases the reach of Clobotics’ blade inspection solutions across Europe and North America via GEV’s established office network.

Dan Boon, General Manager of GEV Wind Power spoke about the partnership and the progress GEV has already made in the USA: “The Clobotics partnership, utilising autonomous drones for inspections, means that the industry can benefit for the first time from a true turnkey fixed price inspection and maintenance solution. Under the banner of our Blade247 program we can offer a fixed monthly fee to manage our client’s rotor blades and de-risk this typically variable cost budget.

“This is an exceptionally attractive proposition to clients who want to ensure there is a predictable fixed budget to cover the majority of their blade maintenance requirements. The offer includes mitigating weather risk through active project management and by taking advantage of our patented Ventura Habitat blade platform solution, which protects technicians during otherwise prohibitive weather conditions. The GEV/Clobotics team offers a high degree of cost certainty and quality assurance for wind turbine owners and operators.”

“Our confidence of entering the most sophisticated wind markets comes from our strong technical backbone and continuous effort in innovation. We keep pushing the technical boundaries so that our industry customers can focus on what they do best, achieving next level of productivity and growth,” says George Yan, CEO of Clobotics, “You can think of Clobotics’ solution as L4 autonomous driving in 3D. There is no longer dependency on highly trained human operators, which dramatically reduces the amount of labor involved and turbine down-time.”

An Independent Service Provider of blade repair and turbine commissioning activities, GEV Wind Power is recognised as one of the most reputable North American blade maintenance operators. GEV’s service offerings vary from straight forward surface conditioning to complex structural repairs and indeed include the commissioning of new turbines.

Clobotics drone technology Windspector involves the deployment of an autonomous drone, which navigates remotely around the wind turbine blades capturing high resolution images as it flies. Inspection is done in minutes, rather than hours. There is no longer dependency on highly trained human operators, which dramatically reduces the amount of labour involved and turbine down-time. Further images of the blades are then automatically analysed, annotated, and reported on the cloud-based customer portal the very next day. The technology and support from the AI solutions in drone based inspections is truly at the forefront of technology and represents the very latest in industry capabilities.

Offering an autonomous AI-based inspection with Clobotics Windspector, backed up by cutting edge repair solutions and including innovations such as GEV’s all weather Ventura Habitat solution, gives the partnership an enviable ability to bring turnkey fixed price solutions to Windfarm O&M clients.

You can see the next generation of AI drones and discuss O&M solutions with Clobotics and GEV at their stand 4031 at the AWEA Wind Power Conference and Exhibition in Houston from 20-23 May this year.

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